


to live another night

by soliloqui



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Dissociation, Drug Abuse, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Ideation, Survivor Guilt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vomiting, War, injuries, might have overlooked something, please ask if you want to know about specific tags, self harm ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-18 13:44:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18121736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soliloqui/pseuds/soliloqui
Summary: You spread the King’s hand against your own, palm-against-palm, like a child comparing sizes. The ring is a cold and unwelcome thing between you. But then the lethargy flows over you again and your fingers lose their tension, slip between those of Regis like they were meant to be there. Regis grips your hand tightly between his.“Cor…” he says.“I’m sorry I let you die,” you reply.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You can absolutely blame Crim for giving me all these old-men-feelings. In particular [this gorgeous picture](http://crimson-sun.tumblr.com/post/171567664531/youre-locked-inside-my-heart-your-melodys-an-art) was the main inspiration behind my story.

**to live another night**

_I did my part, I tried my best_  
_the things I'm fighting to protect_  
 _[always shatter into pieces](https://youtu.be/0OcojXbV1Xo) in the end, oh_

~~~

 

One moment you are in a cave, fighting off a bunch of bloodthirsty demons, the next there’s a _give_ beneath your feet and a green blinding light burning your retina. You lose your balance somewhere along the way, feel your body fall and a dull _thump_ to the head, and when you open your eyes back up again you’re held off the hardwood floor by the arms of none other than Lord Clarus Amicitia.

“This is the dumbest fucking hallucination I ever saw,” you say, squinting up, because bursting into sudden tears isn’t really an option.

The figure who ~~can’t be~~

~~isn’t possibly you saw with your own eyes how –~~

for all intents and purposes appears to be the former King’s Shield lifts an eyebrow in silent judgement. You know that eyebrow; have become intimately familiar with it over the years. It’s an eyebrow you never thought you would see lifted at yourself again.

Why are you philosophizing about facial hair?

Maybe it’s so you don’t have to concentrate on the other things, such as Clarus’ incredibly young face, almost bereft of wrinkles, with the piercing gray eyes that seem to glare deep into your soul. His short hair – short, but not a military crop, not yet – hasn’t lost its deep brown color yet. (And you remember that conversation; Clarus bemoaned the wild days of his youth to be over, didn’t want Gladdy to keep tangling his fingers in it, but a certain someone kept vetoing a buzzcut.) His billowing council robes smell of cold, airy hallways and steel close to your nose and wake feelings of home in you.

And then –

And then another face leans over you, regal brow furrowed deeply in concern, and this time you can’t suppress the sudden, sharp ache somewhere along your ribcage, like somebody pushed a knife in and your breath out.

_Well, fuck._

“It just got dumber.”

“Should I be insulted?” His Royal Majesty King Regis Lucis Caelum the CXIII says, in that darn posh accent of his because of _course_ he does.

This is – you don’t know. A hallucination maybe, or those tonberries fucked you up good, stabbed you with their stupid knives and you didn’t even notice dying; maybe this is the afterlife and the Astrals decided to reward you for all the bullshit you’ve had to put up with in your life.

Either way, your deceased liege and the one sworn to protect him are crowding around you in the King’s Office and it –

_blood on the marble, spattered and trickling in tiny rivulets through the cracks in the stone, and you can’t look at that but when you lift your gaze there’s a man who once bandaged your wounds and kept you company when you couldn’t sleep at night pinned to the awnings with his own sword, like a fucking butterfly, broken and macabre and all the things he was never supposed to be_

– makes your mouth feel dry and a lump sit tight in your throat, heart pounding quickly.

You need to get away from it all for a moment, just for a moment, but you nearly pass out again as soon as you try to stand up. You rub the sudden black spots from your eyes and your stomach turns. Clarus, who is a mother-chocobo and a fucking menace if you ever met one, tightens his grip on you. “Stay down,” he chastises.

“You hit your head hard on the way down, Cor.” The King reaches for the bump on your head with his long fingers, and through the disorientation you can almost ignore the way your heart skips a beat.

Iris is a hugger, for sure, but still. It’s been so _long_ since anyone touched you gently, like that.

“Did you drink enough? Cor, I swear to the Gods, if you’ve started skipping breakfast again – ”

Nope. As nice as this all is, you are likely currently lying on some darn cave floor bleeding out from several stab wounds to the stomach and should post-haste return to your proper consciousness to take care of yourself. There are people depending on you.

“Dumb fucking daemons… should’a listened to the kid,” you mumble, dragging a hand down your face.

“Kid?”

“Prompto.”

The King watches you like you are a particularly bothersome puzzle to solve. You avert your eyes and elect to ignore the knife twisting in your chest. Whatever this hallucination is, it got His Majesty down to a ‘t’. He looks the way he would have when you were all maybe in your thirties and the war hadn’t completely worn you down, not yet. When Regis’ beard still lacked the salt-and-pepper it would come to sport, and his posture was better, stronger. Not as slumped by the heavy burden of the Wall. When he could still pick up Noctis easily.

(Back when you finally left the folly of youth behind and the feelings of awe and hero-worship gentled into something more mature, yet nevertheless unspoken.)

“Cor, you’re starting to concern us.”

“…mhmm, okay.”

You finally manage to stand up, evading Clarus’ probing hands, and the first thing you notice is the freshness in your limbs. In place of the chronic pain that had started to set into your joints, your bone marrow, the hard flesh of your neck and down your collar where a Yojimbo pierced you good, there’s simply – nothing. Lightness. A small, sharp pain in the back of your head where you supposedly met with the edge of a table. Your hands look comparably soft and smooth, a far cry from the net of calluses and scar tissue that would come to cover them like a glove. Your breath shudders on the way in.

You take an involuntary step to the side, and startle when something soft and warm and _good_ hits your face. The unexpected brightness blinds your pupils for a moment. There, past the King’s head – at the window –

You stagger past Regis in a daze, barely acknowledging the bump-in with the King’s elaborate chains of office. Your hands hit the window sill heavily, knees locking up, and then – and then –

“Oh.”

It’s all bright, your entire face, it’s filled with this gentle warmth, everywhere, on your chest, on your bare wrists, your neck, it’s all warm and soft like a blanket in winter and you soak it in like a dying man.

“Cor?”

_Sunlight_ , you think. “I – ” And then  – “Oh,” as you grow dizzy again. You watch your body buckle dispassionately, only mildly inconvenienced that the bright afternoon sun outside vanishes from your vision again, and vaguely register the strong presence at your back that catches you.

Then you black out again.

 

You wake up in the Citadel’s medical facility. There’s no one in immediate sight, no healer on the prowl, so you promptly check yourself back out.

You walk through the hallways, the once familiar maze of the Citadel, and your feet barely touch the ground. Attendants, soldiers, councilmen, they all walk past you with barely a nod of acknowledgement, as though nothing were wrong, as though Insomnia isn’t currently a big pile of burning rubble and demon gore. You recognize some faces, people whose corpses you saw buried beneath buildings or riddled with bullet holes.

No one bothers to stop and properly appreciate the sun hanging low in the sky, unobscured by demonic miasma, like it’s not a small miracle right there above their heads.

_“…we’ll run out of perishables in three weeks. Scientia’s taken stock of canned food, but it’s not looking good.”_

_“The greenhouses?”_

_“Even if we had the energy left for those…”_

_“Sir, the streets are starting to flood with refugees, and more will be coming. We might need to consider raising a quota.”_

_“Not on my watch, Monica.”_

It burns, yet you can’t stop looking.

It might be the decades of military service that help you keep your face stone-blank as you walk in a daze. Beneath the surface, your mind is roiling; thoughts stumbling over each other left and right. You’re not – you’re not supposed to be here.

You’re supposed to be in an underground system of forgotten Solheim ruins deep in the bowels of Niflheim’s once majestic mountains, searching for some clue you might have overlooked; anything to help counter an unlucky prophecy. You’d hoped – but no, here you are instead, some magical dream land where Insomnia is alive and thriving under its one-hundred-and-thirteenth King and the sun is shining and nothing around you feels solid anymore.

The marble walls of the Citadel hallways swim before your eyes, further away than they should be. Only an arm’s reach away, yet you don’t think your fingers would touch stone were you to try. They prickle with a staticky numbness.

“Marshal?”

The voice echoes around your head, familiar and yet not, before taking shape behind you. You turn around, and there is Monica Elshett, all light brown hair and polite smile and a good twenty years too young. The ~~world-weary soldier~~ naïve, spirited Lieutenant comes to a stop in front of you and cocks her head.

“You didn’t respond to your phone, Sir. Did the meeting with the King drag on longer than planned?”

You swallow; stare at her.

“…Sir?”

You shake your head. “…yea, it did. Why aren’t you at your post? Where are you assigned today?” Your voice comes out gravelly, and you clear your throat.

“I… just returned from accompanying Councilor Saga to his appointment in the Third District, Sir. As… you told me to do, this morning…?” She shifts her chin to regard you quizzically. “Are you sure you’re alright, Sir?”

You rub your eyes, sigh deeply. “Yea. Fine.”

Monica is quiet for a moment.

“Shall we go then, Sir?”

“…go?”

“To look over the schedule for the Prince’s protection detail?”

You stare at her. Blink.

Monica takes a deep breath. “Not to offend you, Sir, but currently you’re making it seem like an impostor slipped on your skin like a bodysuit and is making a big show of failing to be inconspicuous. Need I be arresting you?” She says it like a joke, but her posture is tense.

You shake your head. “Nah, just need some sleep. Go feed your cats, or something. We’ll go over the schedule tomorrow.” Monica’s face slackens further and you leave her standing in the hallway before she has a chance to call after you or, worse, make good on her suggestion.

You walk, and you walk, and maybe it’s not a surprise when you end up in one of your favorite spots to hide away from your duties. There’s a small roof above the courtyards, only accessible by climbing a narrow ledge off to the side of a balcony, that not many people know of. Gives you a great view of the gardens and walkways below, while keeping you partially hidden by a tree.

You kneel on the cold stone and feel the chill seep through your pants. You can’t see the sun from here anymore, which is already setting low in the sky, but you can see its effects in the orange glow cast over the scene. A stiff wind tousles the red leaves still clinging to the branches and shrubs – it must be late in the year.

Most of the foliage has been raked into neat piles by the gardeners waiting to be picked up, but the young child with the woolen mitts and cat-eared beanie down below doesn’t seem to care much, squealing with laughter from inside the pile of fluttering leaves as his nanny stands to the side, tutting uselessly.

You can’t remember the last time you saw your Prince ( – your _King_ ) this carefree. Enjoying himself, as all young people are supposed to. You look at him, but you can’t reconcile this giggling boy with the grieving prince bent over the tomb of his ancestor, a sudden kingdom thrust upon his narrow shoulders and spewing vitriol at his father.

_“Why didn’t he tell_ me _that?! Why did he stand there smiling as I left? Why-”_

_“In what time he had left-”_

You look at this child, and you feel a sharp tug at your intestines from the knowledge you will one day lead it to slaughter, as per its father’s wish.

(That’s a lie and you know it, have seen the pain in Regis’ eyes as something tangible the day he told you about the prophecy and every day thereafter, yet this is the man who kept you from your rightful place at your King’s side during the bloodshed, kept you at the sidelines, made you an unwilling _survivor_ so you could one day guide his son to his death, and you’re not sure you will ever forgive him for that.)

This Noctis of your dreamscape, vulnerable and red-cheeked and swiping leaves from his tousled hair, he has seen none of it yet. Not the smoke above his hometown, nor the blood of his loved ones on his hands or the desolation of war, and you swear to yourself in that moment that you would lay down your life in a heartbeat if it meant the child was spared.

The sound of boots hitting the roof behind you is not unexpected.

“Knew I’d find you here.”

Clarus settles down next to you with a sigh and a billow of his robes, and it’s only then you become aware of the little pinpricks of pain in your palms where you clenched your fists too tightly. You spread your hands and rub them on your thighs, watching as Noctis down below greets his father with enthusiastic arms thrown around his shoulders and Regis twirls him effortlessly.

“You’ve had Lieutenant Elshett quite worried, my friend. Was about to start a formal inquiry into your fitness for duty, before I told her about the head injury,” Clarus says, while reaching over unsolicited and tilting your head to take another look at the bump in the back. His brash manner is like a familiar rock in the roaring sea. “Personality changes can be a common symptom of concussion. I’m assuming you released yourself from the medwing?”

You grunt and slap his hand away.

“You’ll be spending the night over, and I _will_ be checking on you every two hours,” Clarus decides. You throw him a dirty look. “Quit bitchin’, kid. Chances are you won’t even remember in the morning.”

They get interrupted by Noctis squealing noisily down below, trying to evade the King’s attempts at stuffing slimy leaves down the back of his hoody, and you grow somber.

“…kid?” Clarus asks.

“It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

 

You’re not… _childhood friends_ , as in that you had sleepovers at each other’s places as children, munched on popcorn while playing boardgames through the night and calling each other’s parents Mum and Dad.

You never met your father, whoever the fucker was, and your mum died of sickness soon after you joined the Crownsguard at the tender age of thirteen. Clarus’ mother was felled in battle, taking a sword meant for King Mors. You met each other in the middle of a war that robbed both your childhoods, and either way, Clarus is a good ten years older than yourself and way past indulging in the frivolities of youth.

So maybe it’s not a big surprise that you can count on one hand the amount of times you’ve slept over at the Amicitia Residence. Visited, of course, countless times. But rare was the occasion that you couldn’t make it back to your own apartment, still the tiny two-rooms-plus-bathroom thing that was the first living space you could afford on your ‘guard wage, even though you’ve probably accumulated a small fortune during your decades in service to the Crown.

Despite the posh interior design, the mansion is well lived-in and frighteningly _solid_. You feel the tap of your boots against the mahogany hardwood echo through the entranceway as you’re led past framed family pictures, coming to a stop at the fridge decorated in Gladio’s training schedule and Iris’ scribbly drawings. Her pencils are scattered across the dinner table, a small jacket hanging haphazardly from a chair.

Clarus throws his car keys into a bowl on the table and feeds you heated-up leftover casserole that is somehow one of the best and the worst things you have had in years and informs you that the children will be out for the night, both staying with friends.

(The best, because of _course_ ; it’s fucking _Clarus_ and the man sure knows his way around a stove, but also the worst because the food brings up so many buried memories of campfires and starry nights as it touches your tongue that you need to swallow against the bile rising up your throat.)

You feel Clarus watching you from the other side of the table as you bite into something fresh and green (when was the last time you had _peas_? What a luxury, when the greenhouses took up a good quarter of the energy output generated by the meteor shards) and force yourself to keep a straight face.

“Might have some old pants lying around that would fit you. Come on.” Clarus slaps your shoulder.

The bed in the guest room is way too soft after bunking on palettes or the hard ground for years, but somehow the throbbing in your head and the deep exhaustion spreading through your bones are enough to ignore it. There’s no daemons on the prowl here. Clarus is here, and Clarus is – safe.

You finally fall asleep with an uneasy sigh.

 

Clarus drives you home the next morning. If he’s tired from waking every few hours to check on you, he doesn’t show it; only tells you that you have the day off and that he will “come after you with a pickaxe if I see your puny butt at the Citadel for any reason other than visiting medical”. He apparently knows you too well because your car won’t be delivered here until the next morning, “which is the earliest you should need it anyway.”

“What if I’ve got to run groceries?” you ask just to be a little shit. You can’t help it around Clarus. The man raises an eyebrow at the blaring neon lights of the convenience store across the road and tells you to get the fuck out of his car.

You do.

Insomnia bustles around you, incredibly and mind-bogglingly alive. You would’ve liked to stay standing for a moment, take it in, feel the morning sun on your face. But Clarus is waiting until you’ve made it through the front door without further incident or another fainting spell, so you hurry to take your keys out and walk into the building.

You’re half surprised the keys fit at all. It’s ridiculous – the dim, moldy staircase, cold because the windows aren’t properly insulated here, the creaky floorboards, the dingy lights. Music coming through the wall from one of the neighbors. It’s like you never really left it, like the city didn’t burn.

Your apartment is the same, as well. Small, orderly, impersonal. You don’t have many belongings, and the important ones (your collection of dog tags for one, and a certain picture frame for another) are out of sight. The one thing you did invest in, beside the couch, was making the windows sound-proof to stop the noise of the busy roads from penetrating your little haunt.

You hadn’t bothered seeking out the remains of your apartment in the rubble, not while it was being plundered by the Niffs like cockroaches on rotting meat, nor later, when the Night had fallen. You wonder what it must’ve looked like, going up in flames, smashed by a stray fireball, trampled on by gigantic stone statues who couldn’t care less about collateral. Wonder if the little kid from the immigrant family on the second floor got out.

It must’ve been a while later when you realize you’ve been standing in the middle of your living room like an idiot. You go to check the contents of the fridge while chastising yourself for forgetting to grab the mail while you were downstairs, both familiar motions. The kitchen is almost empty of edibles, unsurprisingly, but there might be enough in there to last a day or two if your requirements are low.

Which they are, having lived through eight years of a world in ruins.

There are things you should be doing, but you keep losing time. You blink, and an hour’s passed with you lying on the couch and staring at the cracked ceiling, listening to the hum of electricity somewhere in the room. Your neighbors two floors up are moving furniture, laughing along to a tinned audience on TV elsewhere. You breathe very carefully.

_Wish the walls could be as dense as the new windows_ , the younger you would have thought.

Closing your eyes is making the floaty feeling worse, so you sit up with a grunt and rub your hands over your head roughly to wake yourself up. The back of it stings slightly – there’s a reason you don’t use potions on headwounds, but it’s still annoying. Your teeth are buzzing, and it makes your lips feel all tingly.

“Alright,” you say. Alright.

 

It’s November 28th, seven forty-three. You are thirty-two years old, live in the Eighth District, and act as an operative for the Crown.

Wrong.

You are fifty-three on July-something (who cares, it’s always cold), seven sixty-four. You try your hardest to lead the last few remnants of the Crownsguard, Glaive, and Hunters through humanities last stand in anticipation of the arrival of the King and coming of the Dawn. You’ve traveled the world in search for fellow survivors, slayed daemons, killed and bled, in the hopes that someday the death of your third king might at least have meaning.

Your body has almost gotten used to the way the air is always filled with mold and a rotten stench, the way dark miasma swirls in ugly patterns across the horizon, darkening the world and making a cold breeze howl in your ears. You’ve gotten used to the sight of abandoned lodgings, crumbling shelters and long, lone stretches of land filled with daemons while on your travels.

And then, you step outside and –

And a car drives past, and a mother chatters animatedly with the young child hung from her hand, and in the distance a lawn mower is fired up.

You stop in your tracks, hear the heavy apartment door clunk shut.

This isn’t real.

You take your car to the Citadel, settle into an old routine. You train the ‘guard, meet up with Monica to talk about strategy, you do your paperwork. It’s easy enough, mechanical. It gets Clarus off your back, at least. But apart from that, you don’t –

It’s like watching your body from the outside, and somebody else has taken control, locked you behind a thick pane of glass. You go through the motions, but you’re not really _there_. You want to wake up, you want this to be real.

~~(You’re scared this _could_ be real.)~~

There are things to do, you know you should be taking action, take down Niflheim single-handedly if need be, knock the Astrals down a peg, figure out a way around the prophecy.

Gods, there is so much to _do_.

But winter pulls an icy layer of frost over the streets of Insomnia, and you freeze with it.

 

* * *

 

Nights are the hardest.

You’ve always been a light sleeper, quick on your feet in case of an emergency, but now you can’t even fall asleep. The dim ceiling presses you down into the mattress, steals your breath. Your heart starts pounding frantically as soon as you close your eyes, and it makes you nauseous and sweat bead on your brow.

You think of Iris, and how she’s doing, if she’s still alive; wonder if Prompto got eaten by a coeurl or if Gladiolus was ambushed by a horde of hobgoblins, if Ignis stumbled in Lestallum’s maze and broke his neck. Every time you close your eyes, it’s someone else that dies – Cindy, Dustin, Talcott, Cid, Weskham, Dave – but it’s always your fault.

It’s usually around two in the morning that you give up on sleep and take to prowling through the neighborhood until sunrise, driven by restless energy, until it’s inconspicuous enough to start your day.

There’s always war going on, in the background, but you are Crownsguard and the Crownsguard looks after the Crown, so where the Crown is, so are you. The first time you step inside the throne room you almost pass out, buckling on weak legs.

_There are bodies hanging from the ceiling in chains, limbs stretched grotesquely, skin gray and sallow in its decay, and the smell. Six, the smell. You don’t want to look when you catch a flash of gold amongst the black, but you do, and by the gods do you wish you hadn’t._

_It was a mistake to come here, but you are growing desperate, and if there’s just a sliver of a chance that Ardyn will give up a scrap of information, then that’s a chance you’re willing to take._

_There’s other bodies there that you recognize, like that Kingsglaive that kept getting himself in trouble but according to Libertus saved the Princess, who’s hanging next to him, once beautiful features pulled taut in the stiffness of death. Another, larger body in council robes and you decidedly drag your attention down towards the stairs and the throne, upon which the oldest living Caelum sits._

_“Do you like them?” the daemon calls down to you, lips tilted into a smirk. “I’m still tweaking the decorations for when the King arrives. Everything must be_ perfect _, of course. Why I am simply tingling with excitement for his grand entrance!”_

_One of the bodies above is turning in a nonexistent breeze, and you force yourself not to look. It’s not real, you know it isn’t, because you’ve carried your King’s body away yourself and buried it deep beneath the Citadel, heedless of the Magitek infantry still swarming the city. But those cold, dead eyes seem to bore into your head in silent reproach, anyway._

“Marshal?”

It takes you a moment to realize your King is addressing you, watching with concern. You take a step forward and apologize, pretending you still know how to breathe, pretending your mind’s not hanging in chains thirty feet above the throne.

You spend the following night taking the training rooms apart with your sword.

 

("You know, If I didn't know for a fact it's impossible to imitate that death-glare, I would start questioning if this is even you at all."

And –

“Yes, precisely. That’s the one.”)

 

You train and train and keep your distance from a young prince and run from your memories, which instead catch up with you in the middle of the night when the sleeping pills you purchased on one of your midnight walks finally drag your unwilling body into unconsciousness. You help your old neighbor, who’s gonna die from a stroke three years from now; take out the trash and carry in her grocery bags and eat the cookies she rewards you with like she’s done for years now, and think maybe it was a mercy she wasn’t around Insomnia at a later time.

You sit down in the mess, turn around, and find yourself on a bench next to an armorless General Glauca.

“Marshal.”

A city in flames, a King with a hole in his chest and betrayal on his lips and two monarchies in ruin and yet what you say is –

What you say is –

“Mind passing me the salt?”

Drautos grunts and hands it over. Your fingers barely graze.

You turn back to the plate in front of you, and when you leave the mess hall fifteen minutes later, you’re not sure what it is that you ate.

 

(Thing is, it doesn’t _matter_. None of this is even real. You could run naked and screaming through the streets singing the imperial hymn at the top of your lungs and no one would care because it _doesn’t bloody matter_.

Your skin is a numb plastic thing around you and it wouldn’t matter if you tore it open like paper, shredded it with your nails, slipped a knife down your veins.

It isn’t real.)

 

(…it’s not real, but somehow, you’re not waking up.)

 

* * *

 

 

Days pass, weeks pass. You walk past councilmembers in the hallways who you know have a silver tongue and are ready to strike the King in the back as soon as an opportunity presents itself, yet you do nothing. You pass Drautos, watch Niflheim impede on new territories from afar, and yet you do nothing. You’re barely even scratching at the pane of glass anymore. Instead, you watch.

The Citadel used to be your home, before you lost it and became a hermit whose place was anywhere in the world that had a purpose for you. This was your home, but now all you see are ghosts and destruction around every corner.

(And actually – no, that’s a lie. Home was never the Citadel, or even Insomnia. _Home_ has always been a person, and when that person is gone, how can you remain tethered to this world?)

The King and his Shield grow suspicious over time. You feel their gazes whenever your eyes stumble over the sight of a comrade who fell in Keykatrich, leaning against the bannister with a knife through their neck. When your voice falters in the middle of the sentence because you could’ve sworn there was the smell of gunpowder on the air, because lifeless eyes are watching from behind your liege’s shoulder.

It’s not that the hallucinations are _new_ per se, just that they mostly left you alone in later years, subsiding gently until reality was gruesome enough to substitute either way. Who needs dead comrades come alive to blame you, when there’s death staring you in the face every day? When every day is a new failure, a new life lost?

You ignore the gentle whispers of therapy and post-traumatic stress and lose yourself in the blurred borders of dreams and reality. Slash at straw puppets until they turn into green-masked infantry, throw the axman that snuck up behind you to the ground and raise your sword for the final strike before the MT turns back into Clarus, lying before you with a cut on his cheek and staring at you with a silent, piercing look.

You step back and lower Kotetsu, trying not to tremble through the floor.

“Something spooked you deeply, my friend, and I intend to get to the bottom of it,” Clarus ~~threatens~~ says, slowly standing up. “With your help or without it.”

Yuletide is a welcome break, and yet a day like any other. You can ignore Noctis during the official festivities, but not very well throughout the informal celebration between the Amicitias, Lucis Caelums, Hesters, and Ignis held annually in the King’s Suite afterwards. Luckily, the children stick mostly to themselves playing with their new toys until it is time for Jared to take them to bed and the other adults retire to the fireplace with a bottle of expansive brandy.

Regis is as dressed down in a pin-stripe vest and sweater as he allows himself on most days, and Clarus followed suit. Their cheeks grow a gradually deeper red as the bottle empties and the men reminisce about the old times, about Weskham and Cid and the big, wide world. You let yourself get lulled by the alcohol and the warmth of the fire (you are always feeling cold, these days), as your mind draws back to better times, warmer times. As you think of the picture frame locked in your drawer, think of the exact replica lying around Cid’s garage that didn’t fall victim to the flames.

You are not the only one feeling the brandy’s relaxation. Regis’ head is bent backwards on the couch, his cravat loosened around his throat. His lips glisten in the firelight, wet from his drink, eyes half-lidded and decidedly not protesting Clarus’ hand high on his thigh; content like a cat that got the cream.

They only ever let themselves be open like this, sequestered away from the world and prying eyes.

And then Regis’ eyes open fully and regard you over the top of his glass, heated despite the slight drunken glaze, and oh how you wish that gaze was actually meant for you.

When the two of them retire for the night soon after, they don’t even make a secret out of heading to the King’s bedroom together. Clarus stops by your armchair on the way, bends down low to wish you a good night with a warm hand wrapped around your neck, and you try not to think what it would be like if that were an invitation, if that were meant for you, too. You keep watching the embers lose their glow for a long time after.

 

(Some days, you find yourself wondering if you even _want_ to wake up.)

 

And then.

 

And then you walk in on Regis lamenting that he can’t accompany Noctis on his trip to see the fireflies, and it’s not even really a choice when you open your mouth to volunteer.

 

* * *

 

_//DAEMON ATTACK REQUIRE IMMEDIATE BACKUP_

You’re not quite sure what you’re doing here.

You thought you’d already more or less agreed with yourself that this wasn’t reality, so really it shouldn’t matter if you let things flow their natural way. Watch things blow up again, like a really shitty, predictable episode of reality TV.

And yet.

Here you’re sitting, shotgun to one bulletproof Crown-issued vehicle on its way back from a royal excursion. The car is quiet, the driver serene but focused while tapping his fingers to the rhythm of the radio, Noctis halfway asleep against his nanny in the back.

You’re not sure why you’re here, exactly, but then you think of Noctis’ shy eyes, gloved hands reaching out and clumsily pushing a sheet of paper in your hands while chewing on his lips.

“For you,” he’d mumbled. “’Cause you’ve seemed… sad, lately. I don’t want you to be sad.”

You’d flipped it over, and there was a child’s drawing of a lion and a little boy (surprisingly discernable, but then the young Prince has always had a secret talent for artistry). You remember cradling the paper carefully, like the priceless thing it was.

“I… I miss you.” With those words, Noctis had taken back off across the clearing towards his caretaker.

What can you possibly hope to achieve against the Marilith? You should’ve tried to warn someone, get them to cancel the trip. But then you don’t know what would’ve happened, if they’d have even believed you.

You press the middle button on your phone, let the little square of light illuminate the cabin once again; stare at the unsent text message.

_//DAEMON ATTACK –_

Maybe it won’t happen.

Maybe this is a part of this unreality, maybe things will magically turn out better this time, maybe –

Your thoughts get derailed by the car in front going up in flames.

The booming sound of the explosion drowns out Noctis’ caretaker’s shriek as the prince is ripped from his slumber, and for a second, the orange light takes over your sight. By the time your eyes adjust and the rest of the guard starts their confused murmur, you’ve already hit ‘send’ and unbuckled your seatbelt.

You spin around to the back. “Take the Prince and run in the opposite direction!” you order gruffly.

There’s no time to reassure the frightened child; you’re out of the car yourself in seconds and summon your katana, getting ready to take on the six-armed snake daemon that his majesty himself was unable to defeat at his prime.

Your mouth runs dry and your heart beats quickly, tuning out all unnecessary distractions. There’s only you and the Marilith, and the handful of Crownsguard that start dropping like flies around you under the barrage of swords. That, and the ever-ticking countdown until reinforcements arrive.

 

You fight.

There’s no single second to think, to regroup, because the Marilith is omnipresent and always moving, always slashing, trying to advance towards her target. It’s all you can do to keep up with her, and sometimes not even that much.

You take a few hits, because gods be damned, that snake has a few arms too many and it’s hard to keep track of all of them at once, even when you take your secondary blade into the equation. Your body might be young again, and your mind honed and sharp and used to constant battle against overwhelming demonic foes. But loath as you are to admit it, you’ve also gotten used to fighting with a few former ‘glaives, hunters, or one of the kids at your back, and that backup is still sorely lacking.

You don’t know if the men and women at your feet are dead or merely heavily wounded, but you don’t have the time to spare the thought, nor whether Noctis has made it to safety yet. You can only hope.

There’s blood making the grip on your sword’s handle slippery, and something off about your left leg is slowing down your movements. You don’t have _time_ for this, not when another blade is slashing down towards your neck and you need to dodge and roll, barely avoiding a second blade before you’re back on your feet.

All you need is _time_.

It can’t be long now, it has to be, because you’re on your last legs and you can’t be sure yet that Noctis is out of danger. The muscles in your arm ache at another heavy impact, another sword hastily blocked and it’s almost too late when a spark of blue heralds the arrival of the King.

You drop out and roll to the side as Regis comes blazing in with all the glory of a full Armiger drawn, all shining blue light and sparks of death. You take a second to breathe before rejoining the fray, work in tandem by cutting at whichever giant arm isn’t currently occupied by the sword or mace of a King of Old, and it seems to be working. Bit by bit, you manage to push the daemon back towards the nearby cliff.

But then there’s the sound of a little boy calling out, “Dad!” and that slip in Regis’ focus is all the Marilith needs to follow the target of your attention and slash out.

You move before your mind even has the chance to catch up, before the King can throw his sword in a warp, you are closer, you bring Kotetsu up in a block but it slips from your slick hands and the next thing you know is –

a line of pressure against your chest, weightlessness, impact.

The air is driven from your lungs so completely that it _aches_. You need – to breathe, but Titan is squeezing your lungs in a vice grip and you claw the earth with your bare hands, struggling desperately, mouth open in a silent scream.

You’ve lost all sense of proprioception, but something’s changed and there’s a blue night sky and flame and smoke filling your vision and fire licking across your chest, the taste of copper on your tongue.

Gods does it burn, and you still can’t breathe, but more than that you have to…

_Danger!_ Watch out, protect! Get up!

Just a moment, you just need to take a deep breath and you’ll get up in just a –

Damnit. Why can’t you _move_?

It hurts, and your thoughts are starting to slow down, limbs growing heavy, and then there’s an unearthly shriek echoing through your ears. A moment, two, and then hands are patting at your face frantically.

When did you close your eyes? You drag them open painfully, but it’s hard to focus on the face hovering above you. The person seems panicked, and it reminds you that you should be worrying about something. You paw at the air until your hand meets fabric and you grip it tightly.

“Noc- …No…” You can’t make your voice work, but at least sound is still flickering in and out of your awareness. There’s a strange, gurgling noise, like someone’s dying, and you wonder about that.

The person grabs your shoulder, presses down on your chest, and then the horizon moves at the same time as something _rips_ and a fresh bout of pain blossoms at your core and something else trickles from your mouth, triggering you to cough weakly. You’re starting to feel rather cold, and wet. Is it raining?

You realize you’re still mouthing the name when the figure at your side lays a reassuring hand on your neck, the other still steadily pressing down on your chest. “Noctis is fine… -ou I’m worried ab-… -or? Cor?! Stay with me, damnit!”

Despite the audible ire, something in your chest loosens at the words. Hands are scrabbling at you again, slapping your cheek, but you can’t help it. Your lips are tingling with numbness, the cold from the ground starting to creep in, and your limbs are so, so heavy. Your hand slips towards the ground.

“Cor, you fool – ”

You can’t help the rough laugh at that, feeling something splatter from your mouth. You choke involuntarily.

It’s okay, now. You’re done.

You’re still drowning, but the world is growing dark, and maybe that means it’s time to sleep. A strange warmth grows in your body. The last thing you hear is someone wailing in the background and an urgent voice calling your name.

Your eyes slip closed.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Later, all you will remember is the blinding lights passing by above you. There’s too much chaos around your head, too many voices yelling, but there’s a pressure on your chest that won’t let up and you get lost in the steady green eyes of the man running alongside your stretcher.

 

You drift.

It’s quiet, and peaceful, and sometimes you hear voices. You don’t understand, but it’s soothing. Someone’s holding your hand, and you know you are safe.

“Reggie, for gods’ sake. You need to get some rest.”

“…not yet.”

You keep drifting.

 

There’s something in your throat, and you need it out.

Lifting your heavy hand takes almost all your effort. What’s going on?

You feel something pressing down on your tongue, making you want to gag, and it goes down your throat, you can’t breathe. You can’t breathe. Why isn’t anyone doing anything? You flap haphazardly at the thing between your lips, trying to dislodge it, but something grabs your hand and pulls it away.

“Please don’t do that.”

An eye cracked open reveals not much else other than blinding white light and blurry dark shapes. You’re starting to panic and renew your efforts, slapping your own chin in the process.

“Seriously kid, stop it. Nurse is gonna sedate you if you keep that up.”

_…sedate?_

If only that annoying beeping could quiet the fuck down so you could _think_. You need to get the tube out, but someone’s holding you hostage. Niffs? What is this torture? You remember fire, grass beneath your back.

“Hey. Cor. Look at me.” Something warm and rough touches your face, making you flinch back from the contact. “Look at me, Cor.” Your chin is grabbed and tilted to the side, to where a figure is hovering in front of you.

You try to make a sound in the back of your throat, but your vocal chords won’t react.

“You’re alright. You were hurt pretty bad in the fight against the Marilith, and you had to get surgery done, but you’re gonna be okay, you hear? You’re safe now, little lion. All you need to do is rest up.”

_The Marilith? Don’t be ridiculous, I wasn’t even there. I wasn’t there, and Noct got hurt because of it,_ you wanna say but can’t.

Instead, your eyes start fluttering shut again despite your best efforts. The calloused thumb petting underneath your eye is soothing, even if you can’t quite place the voice. “That’s it, kid. There you go.”

_‘m not a kid…_

Unconsciousness beckons, and you can’t help but heed the call.

 

Extubation is every bit as unpleasant as it looks, you find out the hard way. You’re kind of glad you don’t remember half of it after your next nap.

And that’s really all you seem to be doing: Napping, drifting in and out to flashes of nurses bustling around your bed, adjusting this, fiddling with that. You want them to stop, but you’re too tired. There’s a heavy blanket of high-level painkillers laid over your mind. Maybe it’s kind of a good thing you can’t feel your body right now, even if it’s disconcerting.

“Ah, with us again?”

You realize you’ve been staring at Regis for quite some time, now. It’s surreal, seeing him sitting in a plain button-down that makes him look too thin, on a flimsy hospital chair, scrolling through his tablet. Mundane.

“The nurses tell me you’ve awoken quite a few times, now. Nothing wrong with taking another nap if you need it, dear,” he says, eyes still on the device on his lap.

Words spoken by the true King of Naps, a title later passed down from father to son. A title belied by the deep circles underneath Regis’ eyes.

You struggle to pull down the oxygen mask on your face and croak, “You look like shit, Your Majesty.”

The King stares for a moment, caught off guard, before breaking into an easy chuckle. He doesn’t seem to have expected your level of coherency.

“Always the critic,” Regis says and reaches to hold a bottle of water with a straw to your lips. The water soothes at least some of the burn in your throat, but you’re out of breath by the time you lean back again, like you ran a marathon while fighting off Killerbees.

Even through the slowly waning drug haze, you feel a heavy weight pressing down on your chest, squeezing your lungs. There’s bandages peeking out from under the blankets and an IV line and heart monitor connected to your hand. Your left leg is elevated beneath the blanket, something cold wrapped around it. You try not to think about what other sort of tubing is going on down there. There’s really nothing glorious about lying in a hospital bed in nothing but a flimsy nightgown, and you loath how vulnerable it makes you feel.

While you were checking on the state of your body, Regis deftly replaced the mask on your face and you grumble in discontent. The plastic is uncomfortable, oppressing, and _in the way_. You snatch it back stubbornly.

_I’m not done talking yet._

“Go sleep, Regis.” The words are barely more than a whisper and not at all the command you want them to be.

The King sighs. He looks tired.

“All in due time, Cor.” He reaches for the mask, you hold it off to the side out of his reach. “Trust me, sitting here watching you sleep is much more relaxing than holding court.”

“That’s not creepy at all,” you try to say, but your words turn into a breathless wheeze halfway through that scrapes at your raw throat and quickly evolves into an equally breathless, rasping cough that drives tears into your eyes and leaves you lightheaded. Your chest erupts on fire while a creeping pain grows in your head. Your vocal chords feel like they are being shredded.

In your distraction, Regis finally manages to get the damned mask back on your face, but it’s the green-glowing hand on your ribs that you slap away.

“Don’t!” you sort-of yell, muffled by plastic and lack of air. Regis does his best impression of ‘kicked puppy’, but hides it quickly.

You grapple for control over medical equipment, and it ends in Regis’ warm hand covering yours on the plastic shell. At least he’s no longer trying to heal you, the idiot.

“You keep that magic – where it’s bloody _needed_.”

Regis stares at you while you suck in the oxygen greedily, waiting for him to argue that his magic is needed right _here_ , with you; readying yourself to argue right back, that the King needs to hold the Wall, that he needs to support his troops and prepare Elixirs for the wounded at the front and teach his son in elemancy and a million other things that are more important than –

than the man who let him die, who did nothing, who watched his murder from afar; who failed to guide his son as asked and let his companions get maimed, murdered, tortured; a _failure_ –

Despite the flow of oxygen, it’s not getting much easier to breathe.

Carefully, so as not to disturb your various injuries, the King sits down on the mattress beside you. His second hand comes up to wipe at the tear tracks on your temples before pressing a soft kiss to your forehead that shouldn’t feel as damn soothing as it does. Regis cradles your cheek so that you can’t escape his eyes, sad and deep and insistent.

“Cor Leonis,” he says, “I owe you a great, great debt.”

Something passes between the two of you then, something quiet, in the little hospital room that never was, with the fake potted plant and afternoon sunlight streaming through cream curtains, you realize you…

 

(Amongst the shattering of glass, you woke up.)

 

* * *

 

Now that you can stay conscious for longer than a few seconds at a time and even remember the conversations you have, it’s a mix of visitors and forced bedrest. It’s mostly Clarus, Monica, and Dustin who fill you in on what you missed.

You find out that your lungs collapsed on the grass-turned-battlefield, that the King had to hold your cells together while they transported you back to the Crown City. His healing magic might be the only reason you’re still alive, and you think of the other near-corpses on the grass beside you. Of the nine other Crownsguard of the convoy, four made it out alive, one still on the intensive care unit.

Would that number be higher, if the King had decided to spend his energy differently? You will never find out, but the question doesn’t haunt you any less for it.

Regis had accompanied you all the way up to the surgery theatre, Clarus tells you; kept you breathing until the doctors could cut you open and fix what was broken. Even afterwards, the King kept infusing you with his magic until your life was out of danger and they moved you out of ICU (like he would have for Noctis, in a different time and place), up to the point where the strain on his magic was threatening the upholding of the Wall.

“Reggie stayed a long time, but there’s only so long you can ignore a Kingdom until it comes to bite your butt,” Clarus jokes, but you know how he worries when Regis overworks himself.

Your proud list of injuries includes a twisted leg, several shattered ribs that the healers wrapped up tightly, severe damage and scarring to your lungs as well as several slash wounds all over your body. Part of the reason they kept you in the ICU for almost an entire week was to reduce the risk of pneumonia, which is only slowly waning now. Moving hurts, _breathing_ hurts, but you try to draw out the intervals of the pain medication for as long as possible.

(You think of your old Sergeant at the front, years and years ago, who lost his leg to a mine. You tied his stump off with a tourniquet, pressed a gun into his hands and left him behind in the trench upon the next barrage of enemies. All of you were injured, and none fit to carry a comrade, and you knew it. The Sergeant refused the pills from your first aid kit, though.

There’s a point in your life where drowsiness can decide between life and death, and a bullet to the brain kills pain more effectively than most kinds of medication, either way.)

 

Noctis, who has apparently been asking after you relentlessly, finally manages to sneak into your room on an overcast afternoon. He stands at the foot of your bed awkwardly, biting his little lip and looking you over, until you lift a hand in invitation. He slips between you and the edge of the bed, underneath the IV line, very carefully. He is so soft about the movement that you barely feel him against the line of your body, but you do feel his trembles, his unsteady breathing on the pillow next to you.

The boy lifts his arm, hovers in indecision, before deeming your stomach the least fragile place to rest it. “…’m sorry,” he finally murmurs after a while.

You give him time to sort your thoughts, knowing there’s more the Prince has to say.

“If it weren’t… if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt, like that. I saw Dad arrive, and I thought I could help, so I – it was stupid. I’m sorry.”

He startles when you reach over to ruffle his hair. “Noctis Lucis Caelum, you will listen to me well.” You catch his frazzled, wide eyes with yours. “Don’t you ever apologize for wanting to help.”

You tap your index finger against the boy’s chest as the words flow from you like liquid regret.

“This right here? It’s what makes you a good person, it’s what makes me so _damn_ proud of you. And I don’t want you to ever change that, alright?”

Noctis’ eyes tear up slightly, before he hides his face in your neck. “I promise,” he whispers, and snuggles closer.

 

Someone’s trying to take Noctis, and before your brain is even awake you tighten your grip around him while your other hand sparks blue in an attempt to call your weapon. Your adversary, in an unexpected move, grabs straight into the sparks and tamps down on your magic.

Only one person is dumb and capable enough for that, and that is –

“…Dad?” Noctis murmurs sleepily, unaware of the action taking place right next to his head or the frantic pounding in your chest. “Whuzz goin’ on?”

“Time to go love. Say goodbye to Cor.”

The boy yawns and pouts. “Already? …fine. Bye, Cor! I’m gonna come back soon. Right, Dad?”

Regis lifts his son onto the floor, where he waves and walks ahead into the hallway at his father’s prompting. “If he was a bother to you in any way…”

You stare at your liege point blank, as though daring him to finish that sentence.

“…right.” Regis claps a hand on your blanketed leg. “In any case, I just wanted to remind you that you don’t need to cater to his every whim, but I can see that my words will fall on deaf ears, so I shall take my leave now and wish you a good night, my friend.”

Noctis sticks his small, white nose back through the doorway. “Da-ad! Come on, you promised we’d go get some ice cream from the kitchens today, right?”

Regis shepherds him back outside, but keeps his gaze on you long enough to see you mouthing the word _‘Hypocrite’_.

 

The evening that you’re released from the hospital a week later, you are dragged to the Amicitia Manor again because Clarus clearly doesn’t trust your sense of self-preservation. Gladio is still up, says it’s good to see you on your feet again and that he put Iris to bed.

The mattress in the guest bed room is still too soft, and this time you don’t have any supernatural occurrences to take your mind off it. You’re tired, but it’s not enough to knock you out, and neither are the pain meds Clarus keeps insisting you take.

You doze and fidget for a few more hours before giving up. Your feet pad lightly on the hardwood floor as you walk down the hallway, house quiet around you. Gladio is fast asleep and safe when you check in on him, but before you can decide if it’s worth the risk of waking Clarus (an eternally light sleeper), you get held up in Iris’ room, who is in the precarious and expert-looking process of climbing out of her crib.

“Unc’a Cor?” the three year-old says, rubbing her eyes with an arm that’s still clutching her Moogle plushie.

“What are you doing up, chickpea?” you ask and step into the room.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Her eyes are large and pleading, in the way only a tired three year-old’s eyes can be. You settle Iris on your hip and take her downstairs to give her milk with honey in her little sippy cup. Then, you settle on the couch together and Iris tells you how scared she was when Gladio told her about the big snake monster her Dad helped fight.

(Funny, how the night is so blurry you don’t even remember that Clarus was there, but he must have, no?)

“I heard that you got hurt real bad and had to go to hospital, but Daddy wouldn’t let me visit! Are you all better now, Uncle Cor?”

You calm her down the best you can and fall asleep curled around the little girl in your arms, despite the weight that’s pressing on freshly healed ribs. “Go to sleep, chickpea,” you murmur, and with her warm, cozy presence are out like a light in moments.

When you wake, it’s because Clarus is gently caressing his daughter’s face in the dim morning light of the living room, head inches from yours.

“Why didn’t you come wake me, Cor?” he chastises softly. “And sleeping on the couch while you’re still injured, are you mad?”

He takes Iris up to her bedroom to doze for a few more hours. When he returns, you refuse to move to your own bedroom. “That bed is ridiculous,” you claim. Clarus tuts, but leaves you be eventually. You fall asleep to the comforting sounds of Clarus preparing breakfast.

When you wake the second time, you realize that you’re covered with a blanket, it’s brighter in the living room, and two voices are talking a little ways off. Jared has joined his master in the kitchen. “ – never seen him look so peaceful, ever since that fainting spell,” Clarus says. “Almost didn’t have the heart to wake them up.”

“He’s changed,” the servant agrees.

 

* * *

 

You heal.

Painstakingly, and oftentimes slower than you would like, but you do heal.

And it gives you all the time in the world to start _thinking_.

When you’re sitting in the quiet of your apartment, when you’re watching the Crownsguard train, when you’re doing the paperwork Clarus begrudgingly agreed to let you return to.

Noctis is doing well, skipping through the hallways after his Kingsglaive guards with the reckless joy of youth, asking them to tell him stories and exploring the palace with an exasperated Ignis in tow, rather than lying despondently in a hospital bed.

You’ve _changed_ things.

And who’s to say you can’t change more?

You still don’t know why you’re here, or what happened to the people you knew, if the kids are doing okay, if Cid is still kicking, if King Noctis will return from his prison in the crystal. You don’t know, and you wish you did.

But this right here… it’s been _months_ , and you’re starting to think you might have to accept this as your new reality.

A reality that you have the power and knowledge to change for the better. How many more tragedies can you prevent?

…you might never find out, unless Clarus _bloody well_ lets you get back to work.

It’s been several weeks already and still he refuses to let you return to active duty. The idleness is slowly driving you mad. You’ve sneaked out to use the training halls several times, but somehow the Shield always manages to catch you and chew you out for it.

It’s not like you’re still heavily injured. Sure, your chest still twinges every once in a while, and your leg was a bit tricky to walk on the first few days, but you. Are. _Fine._ You’re healed, and ready to join the fray. The endless pampering (though Gods forbid Clarus heard it called that) has turned from comforting to aggravating rather quickly.

Spring is thawing the City, bringing a new wind. And if your restlessness stems from a black, twisting feeling growing deep in the pit of your chest, you’ve decided not to take a closer look at that.

 

Clarus snatches you up after training on your way to the mess to feed you a home-cooked meal in a tupperware.

“The healers were concerned about your weight,” he mentions after having bullied you onto a nearby bench.

“Yea, that’s kinda what happens when you’re unconscious in a hospital bed for a week.”

“That is not what I meant, and you know it, Cor.”

He grabs your arm to spin you around to face him; looks at you like he can uncover your secrets if only he stares hard enough. “What’s going on with you, kid?” he presses, voice ranging between exasperation and defeat.

_Apart from everything? Apart from the fact I failed you, your children, the ones we were meant to protect?_

You can’t stand the concern one more second, so you glare pointedly at the hand on your upper arm until Clarus lets go. The distance hurts, but it’s likely for the better.

Clarus is quiet for a few moments while you eat, before sighing and stabbing his broccoli viciously. “Have you been sleeping at all? You look like a damn racoon, Cor.”

 

He’s not wrong about that. How can you sleep, when there’s so much left to do and none of it is turning out _right_?

Niflheim is still marching against your territories, sending more and more refugees seeking shelter inside the Wall and furthering the general unrest of the populace. Glauca is still out there, gallivanting around while you watch for the smallest slip up to give you a reason to lock the man up for good (or better yet, put a sword through his chest). The council’s snakes keep slithering, all because you’re not a politician and don’t have the intuition and finesse to weed out the black sheep amongst the crowd.

You wish… you wish Weskham were here.

That Cid, with his ever-stubborn manner, calm yet eternally grumpy, were here to knock some sense into people with his hammer, wish he could _fix things_ , like he always did.

But that brotherhood disbanded long ago, and you did nothing at all to stop it.

So all you can do is lie awake at night and chastise yourself for not being asleep, for wasting your energy staring endless holes into the ceiling while ignoring the shadows at the edge of your vision.

 

(Once, just once, do you head over to a familiar neighborhood, run-down and bleak, to watch a fat, blond kid trudge home from school from the shade of an alleyway while feeling a little bit like a creep.

You’re glad the weather is slowly growing warmer, because the kid’s coat is much too thin and the shoes run-down. The blonde is snapping away with his cheap camera, lost inside his head.

You clench your fist and keep watching until Prompto’s turned a corner, before leaving and not coming back.)

 

* * *

 

 

It’s an overcast day, so you decide to skip your morning ritual of greeting the sun on the courtyard roof in favor of visiting the cemetery.

Not many people come here. It’s not a public lot, and only soldiers and other military personnel get the honor of being buried, here in the shadow of the Citadel. A large, black stone thrones in the center, hundreds and thousands of names carved into the smooth surface, while the individual burial sites are arranged in neat rows throughout.

Through the foggy darkness of early morning it’s easier to imagine yourself back in the world of ruin. The air is eerily quiet though, devoid of the shrieks and howls of the Night, and even the slight drizzle of rain on marble is entirely silent.

You’ve spent enough time around veterans to realize you’re dissociating, but you let the feeling wash over you like everything else, like the pattering of water on your numb face, while the rain slowly soaks you through.

There’s less graves than you remember.

~~(Less dog tags in your drawer than there should be.)~~

You know the black stone will slowly start filling in again, one by one, each name another life lost for the sake of the Crown:

The girl that you didn’t ~~couldn’t~~ save, on the black ops to a base in Niflheim.

The Major who showed you a picture of his little daughter, before the Empire’s beasts of war tore him in two.

The rookie who barely had time to prove himself on the field, gunned down after watching his best friend die.

And after all those names, there is one that will never show up on the stone, one name who will always come home where others do not.

How many more died these past few months, just because you couldn’t get your head out of the clouds? If you managed to save Noctis, how many more could you possibly save on the battlefield? How many lives did you ruin by failing to act before now?

You bite the inside of your lip until you taste blood.

Spring is thawing the City, but inside, you still feel cold.

  

“No.”

“Why?”

“Your lungs haven’t had enough time to heal yet.”

“That’s a damn lie and you know it.”

You clench your teeth. Between the cemetery and now lie three weeks, three frustrating, grating weeks in which neither Regis nor Clarus seemed content to let you out of their collective sights and every attempt to be moved to the front has been shot down.

“You can’t keep me locked up forever.”

You wait for him to deny it, to give some flimsy excuse, to pull rank on you again. You wait a long time.

“No, I suppose I cannot,” is what Regis replies in the end. There’s defeat in his voice, something dark and quiet, and you wish things could be different.

You ship out in a cramped van full of murmuring Kingsglaive three days later.

 

* * *

 

“They feed you yet?”

“Nope.”

The other man plops down across from you with a sigh and throws a ration bar your way. “The name’s Ulric, Nyx Ulric.”

(You wait for him to add, ‘though most people call me Hero’, but it never comes. This is no hero yet.)

After a careful look around to make sure everyone else is supplied with food, that no one will go hungry, you tear off the wrapper with your teeth and spit the piece of plastic somewhere into the dirt.

“Leonis.”

“The Immortal, huh?”

You look away, jaw clenched.

“Ouch. Hit a nerve, huh? Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Survive all your friends, then see how the title suits you.”

Nyx is quiet for a time. His eyes are dark. “Yea, I getcha.”

He’s not lying. You look at him, see the hardness around his face, the closed-off look in his eyes, posture tense. Whereas the elder Nyx had time to bury his trauma in years of quips and jokes, this one’s wounds are still fresh.

“Didn’t get to thank ya. Y’know, for before.” He seems to wait for a reply, then thinks better of it. “So, thanks.”

He’s referring to that split-second decision of yours where you pushed Nyx out of the line of enemy fire, rather than the nameless female glaive who instead got grazed on the arm by a bullet, but ultimately survived as well.

Of course, seeing as he survived the trip the first time around, Ulric wouldn’t have been in lethal danger to begin with if you’d been where you were supposed to be: overseeing the Crownsguard in light of Clarus’ presence in Tenebrae. Simply by being here, you’re already changing things; and you’re not sure it’s to the better.

“ _No problem_ ,” you reply in Galadhian.

Nyx’ eyes widen, and you see a few of the Glaives off to the side stopping their conversation.

“ _You speak our language?_ ” Nyx asks. It takes you a couple of seconds, but the words are familiar enough.

“ _A little._ ”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Ulric switches back. “Didn’t take you for that kinda guy.”

“…what kinda guy?” you ask, a little grumpily.

Nyx laughs and bites into his ration bar.

 

* * *

 

You’ve slipped into full-out disassociation by the time you return from the slaughter at the front a month later, barely feeling the ground beneath your feet as you walk to Regis’ office to make your report ramrod-straight in front of his desk. Regis must see something in your eyes, because rather than sending you away he keeps talking, keeps asking his Marshal about inconsequential things. Your ears are full of static, staring out the oval window yet seeing none of Insomnia’s splendor.

“Cor,” the King calls, and it draws you back from planes of bloodshed and the crackle of electricity.

Before you know what happened, you are kneeling on the ground in front of your King’s chair, staring up at your liege with a blank gaze. Your heart pounds in your chest like it’s trying to escape.

There’s a storm slumbering behind Regis’ eyes, soft and terrible, and it makes you want to cut your heart out, offer it on a silver plate to your King in worship while bleeding out over his knees. He wraps his fingers into your short hair to draw your forehead down onto his lap, hand heavy and warm on your head as it starts scratching over your scalp.

_Did it help?_ he seems to want to ask

“I wish you’d tell us what is wrong, little lion,” is what he whispers instead.

In that moment, he reminds you of the Regis you used to know, aged and wise and comforting in his steadfastness, never faltering, a just and kind ruler who made all the decisions others were too scared to.

You clutch at his calf to keep yourself from floating away and try to breathe deeply despite the barbed wire lodged inside your lungs, despite the trembling of your teeth.

“I’m fine,” you croak.

You’re fine.

 

* * *

 

 

You’re not fine.

These things, you find, have a habit of sneaking up on you regardless of how intent you are on ignoring them, and it doesn’t take long for you to go from feeling too little to feeling way too much.

 

_“Now, now. What am I going to do with you?”_

_You swallow. Up above, Ardyn props his chin on his hand._

_“Your name precedes you, of course. To what do I owe the honor of being visited by the great Cor the Immortal?” The mockery drips from his lips like honey._

_You’re here for an answer, and you won’t leave without it. So you steel your voice and square your shoulders. “You will tell me if there’s a way around the Prophecy.”_

_“Trying to save your little King’s life?” Ardyn delights, eyes round and wide. “How utterly adorable.”_

_You clench your teeth. “Name your price, jester.”_

_“What makes you think there is a way?” The smile falls away, temperature dropping suddenly, and in the next second Ardyn emerges from a dark mist right in front of you. The stench is abominable, and you shiver in the sudden cold permeating your uniform. Ardyn’s face bends down to your own, voice as frigid as the air. “What makes you think you have a right to demand one?”_

_The demon starts circling around you like prey, keeping you in his sights at all time._

_“A destiny is a destiny, and I will make sure your little King will suffer before the end. I will thrust a knife inside his chest and watch him squirm, watch as the life bleeds out of his pitiful body amongst the rotting corpses of all those he holds dear. I will desecrate him, toy with him, and make sure the Lucis Caelum line ends in the ignominy it deserves.” His voice is little more than a deranged hiss. “I should hang you on the ceilings with your little friends for your insolence.”_

_He suddenly stops walking and fixes you with eyes oozing black._

_“But no. That would be too easy.” Ardyn comes close again, until he’s staring almost straight down into your brittle soul. “I will let you go. Because you and I, we’re not so different, are we?” His smile grows, and he spreads his arms wide. “Cor the Immortal. Tell me, what’s the worst thing you can do to one such as us?”_

 

What makes you worthy of sitting here, curled up against your apartment floor? What did you do to earn being alive that others did not?

Sometimes you think about taking things into your own hands where fate keeps failing grossly, but you can’t, because you’re the only one with the knowledge to stop things from happening the same way twice.

The sight of the ugly, gnarled scar spanning straight across your ribs from your left collarbone down to your right side, the scar that catches your bloodshot eyes in the mirror after every shower, it’s visible, tangible proof that you made a difference. A reminder that things must be changed.

Though maybe things would turn out better if you weren’t here?

In the end, what did you do, really?

You weren’t there when the enemy tore apart your home and murdered the one you’d sworn an oath to. You left Noctis and the kids alone to fight their way through the ruins of Keykatrich, to gather arms and destroy bases, battling against the very Gods themselves. You weren’t there when Jared was killed right in front of Talcott’s eyes, defending Iris (who _you_ were supposed to protect), nor when the Chosen King made his way deep into the bowels of Zegnautus Keep.

Instead, you were making excuses about ‘scouting out the enemy’ and looking for lost tombs when really you just couldn’t stomach seeing Regis’ eyes staring back at you from Noctis’ face, when Gladio’s protectiveness reminded you so much of his father, Ignis’ calm planning of Weskham and Prompto’s tinkering of Cid.

You were never there when the action happened, so maybe it wouldn’t matter.

Maybe Weskham wouldn’t have needed to look at you with that quiet resignation when you stick around long enough to bring supplies for the lighthouse, but not long enough to _talk_. Maybe Cid, hanging on by the skin of his teeth and only still alive because he’s too stubborn to die, wouldn’t have looked quite as withered and papery if he hadn’t had to deal with your brashness in younger years.

You’ve been a coward all your life.

So you sit in your apartment in the middle of May, down against the wall with nothing for company but your memories and your rasping breaths as you slip between daze and panic.

You need to escape that feeling in the pit of your stomach, the black tar threatening to bubble up, so you head to the corner store and buy a couple bottles of bad liquor. You’re not usually one to drown your sorrows; but then you usually don’t want to forget quite this badly.

The alcohol helps you feel less, but it doesn’t help you sleep to escape your mind, so you wash down a few sleeping pills for good measure. You’ve had to increase the dosage twice in the last few months to even notice an effect. You’re not sure how you ended up on the kitchen floor, but by the time the drugs kick in it’s too late to hobble to the bedroom, so you stay where you slid down the cabinets.

And finally, reality blurs into blessed numbness.

 

You float for a while and get rudely woken by a very rude hand tapping your cheek and annoying voices next to your ear.

“…didn’t even lock the door. I’ve never seen him like this.”

“Cor?”

The tapping won’t let up, so you open your eyes to the blurry sight of your liege hovering in front of you. Something relieves your slack grip of the small orange bottle you were barely holding onto.

“Cor, how many pills did you take?” Another something shakes you, though it can’t have been more than a few seconds since the King asked his question… probably. “Cor, how many pills?”

You have to swallow against the heavy feeling of your tongue before responding. “Three.” You think. “Wasn’t trying to…” Your thoughts drift off again.

Regis hands the pill bottle to Clarus, tells him to check. With strength you forgot Regis used to possess, he grabs you beneath the arms and hauls you upward. You stumble and have to lean heavily against the King. Your head lolls listlessly.

“You smell nice,” you say, face pressed against Regis’ neck and getting intimate with the man’s cologne. Then, as you start walking, “’s weird to see you without the cane. Like you’re not actually dying,” you slur.

“You’re not making a terribly large amount of sense, my dear,” Regis replies soothingly. _That’s okay,_ you think vaguely.

You only make it as far as the couch before your legs give out and you stumble down on the cushion, dragging Regis down with you. What an unsightly, un-royal mess you both must make. Weskham would chew you out, if he were here.

(He’s not, though. Somehow that’s important, and hurts a little bit.)

You spread the King’s hand against your own, palm-against-palm, like a child comparing sizes. The ring is a cold and unwelcome thing between you. But then the lethargy flows over you again and your fingers lose their tension, slip between those of Regis like they were meant to be there. Regis grips your hand tightly between his.

“Cor…” he says.

“I’m sorry I let you die,” you reply, eyes locked on the tangle of hands.

Clarus comes over and kneels before you, the urgency in his eyes totally lost on you; says, “Cor, there’s half the pills in this bottle missing. Should we be calling an ambulance?” and you explain that you’ve been on those for months, you only took three. You start getting grumpy and bitter at that point.

“I’m Immortal, didn’t you know? I don’t _get_ to die,” you spit.

_No,_ your ghosts seem to echo around you, _you get to_ survive.

That’s before a sudden bout of nausea rolls over you, and you just about do not make it to the toilet in time before your body rebels against the poison it’s been fed. If you were in your right mind, maybe you would be embarrassed about the stain of vomit down your front or the tears rolling over your cheeks. As it is, it’s all you can do to hold onto the cold porcelain as your stomach attempts to climb out through your mouth.

It’s too much; you’re choking and you can’t breathe, and the bathroom tiles are so cold beneath your knees. You start feeling unreal again, like someone else is inside your body. You’re shaking.

You just want it to _stop_.

Regis and Clarus surround your prone form when you finally slump to your side, touch you gently and speak soft words as you fall apart. It’s a long while until you are calm and exhausted enough that they can help you clean up, until you fall asleep in what must be your bed.

When you come to, it’s the middle of the night, and all three of you are somehow curled up on your bed together which is ridiculous because it’s so tiny there’s barely space for one person, let alone three. You’d never bothered buying a larger bed as you hadn’t made a habit of bringing people over for the night. But now Clarus is pressed tightly to your back on the side of the wall with an arm around your waist, and Regis is sitting up against the headboard with his phone in hand and your head wedged awkwardly on his lap. The King’s fingers are stroking through your hair absent-mindedly.

“Talk to us, little lion,” Clarus says behind you before you can wonder if the man is still awake. The Shield is a furnace at your back, and you think you’ve never felt quite so warm.

Regis puts the phone away, and then his hands start trailing down the sides of your face in a soothing motion, his gaze open and soft.

“What is it that you need?” the King asks, rather than _‘What happened?’_ , or _‘Who are you?’_ and _‘What have you done with my Marshal?’._

In a daze, you lift your knuckles to trace over Regis’ cheekbones, regal and sharp in the dim light falling in through the window. The night rests quiet around you.

You think about blood-stained marble and gunpowder and ghosts, and your breath shudders as it falls from your lips.

“Redemption.”

Regis holds your hand against his cheek, then presses a kiss to the palm like a blessing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course, anyone who knows me knows that this will end up being a fix-it. I have two more parts planned in this verse, but I wrote this as a standalone in case I didn’t get around to writing them. I'm facing some major upheavals in my life, so who knows :D


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